Transfering educational tax credit from my wife

[persianguy]

Hello, I live in BC.
My wife was student in 2016. She didn't have any income. I paid 19K for her university program. We want to file our taxes for 2016.
It is her first time filing tax in Canada as she she came to Canada in mid 2015 and we didn't file 2015 tax for her.

Now the question is, how much of her tuition and fees I can use (aka transfer?!) ? Can I use the whole 19k amount ? Or is it 5K ? or is it 10k ? (5k for federal + 5k provincial)?

(You may think that I didn't search for this on Google before asking. I did. But today, I went to see a tax specialist as I wasn't sure, and he was 100% sure that I can use (transfer from my wife) the whole 19k amount. Is this true ?)

 

[pie_vancouver]

▼ Line 326 – Amounts transferred from your spouse or
common-law partner
You may be able to claim all or part of the following
amounts for which your spouse or common-law partner
qualifies if he or she did not need the whole amount to
reduce his or her federal tax to zero:

■ the tuition, education, and textbook amounts (line 323)
for 2016 your spouse or common-law partner designates to
you. The maximum amount your spouse or common-law
partner can transfer is $5,000 minus the amounts he or she
uses even if there is still an unused part.
Notes
Your spouse or common-law partner cannot transfer to
you any tuition, education, or textbook amounts carried
forward from a previous year.

You got to understand what's in the guide
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/5000-g/5000g-16e.pdf

 

[persianguy]

I asked because I talked to a tax specialist, and he said he filed this for hundreds of customers, and it was ok to transfer more than 5K.

 

[pie_vancouver]

Did he also deal with audits? If you want to follow him, it's your call, it's your taxes not mine.